In the hour before the sun is due to rise above London city hundreds of Australians and New Zealanders have gathered to remember those who fought and died at Gallipoli.
Today's dawn service at the Australian War Memorial in Hyde Park Corner opens official Anzac commemorations in the UK.
The service marks the 105 years since Anzac troops landed at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915, and the centenary of the surviving troops' return home.
After an opening address and prayer the head of the New Zealand Defence staff, Chris Parsons, read the first reading - Homecoming - Te Hokinga Mai.
Written by Vincent O'Sullivan, it was the poem read at the 2004 dedication of New Zealand's Unknown Warrior - who like many others had sacrificed his life fighting on the battlefield.
Of the approximately 50,000 Allied troops who died in battle New Zealand lost 2,271, another 4,725 were injured - a number of these subsequently died as a result of their injuries.
It's in their memory that hundreds of the approximately 142,000 Australians and 63,000 New Zealanders living in London have gathered, continuing an annual tradition.
Kiwi Peter Dawes, 63, has come to the dawn services in London since they first began here more than 10 years ago.
"My father fought in the war, I have got to honour him and all his friends.
"We must honour the past, that's a definite. I'll keep doing it till the day I die."
The engineer, who has lived in London for 31 years, said growing up in Hastings it had been a yearly tradition to attend the Anzac services.
Here, in London, he said the numbers at the early morning service had continued to grow.
"Nowadays by the time the service starts you can't walk anywhere, it's good to see the younger generation have the memories."
Valley Park School student Georgina Lawrence, 15, was one of the Kiwi children reading at the service.
She said as someone born in London, to a Kiwi mum, the day was a way for her to connect to her heritage as she remembered those who'd died at war.
"It's important to remember the past and to move forward ... to reflect on how people have changed for good and for worse and remember people that died for us to have good future."
Georgina Lawrence, middle, read at the dawn remembrance service. Photo / Corazon Miller
Isabel Ringis, 48, originally from Sydney, said Anzac day was as much about the past as the future.
"It's important to remember everything that's gone before us, the sacrifices that have been made, but also to say 'please don't let this happen again'."
Tamara Ham, 33, said it was a privilege to be able to mark Anzac Day in a public setting given recent security concerns following the recent terror attacks in Christchurch and Sri Lanka.
"It's really important that we can be here, I've got family whose lives were influenced by war.
"Men went to war and came back but didn't talk about it and they died before I was born, but there are still those times. It's my history my family's history."
As the sun began to rise the service drew to a close with a prayer led by Father Martin Hislop.
He prayed for those Anzacs who'd sacrificed their lives for liberty and peace while expressing the hope those living today would "overcome the barriers that divide people and nations from one another".
Following the closing prayer officials laid wreaths at both the Australian and New Zealand Memorials where Ngati Ranana sang a traditional waiata and did the haka.
Official representatives at the service included the Duke of Gloucester, the Australian High Commissioner to the UK, Hon George Brandis QC and the New Zealand High Commissioner to the UK Rt Hon Sir Jerry Mateparae GNZM.
This morning's dawn service will be followed later in the day with services wreath-laying ceremonies at the Gallipoli Memorial in St Paul's Cathedral as well as at The Cenotaph in Whitehall followed by service of commemoration and Thanksgiving at Westminster Abbey.
